


Traitorous Hearts

by PhantomEngineer



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-01-04
Updated: 2018-01-04
Packaged: 2019-02-28 07:36:53
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 1,461
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13266750
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/PhantomEngineer/pseuds/PhantomEngineer
Summary: Twice Minerva loves, twice she is betrayed. Twice she reflects on trusting men, only to have them revealed as agents of Voldemort. Twice she moves on.





	1. Sirius

She cursed, words she could never use in front of the students spilling forth, safe in her private rooms. The betrayal had hit her hard, the realisation of how badly she had been fooled tormenting her no matter how she tried to put it from her mind. He had fooled them all, played them expertly. She should have known that it was too good to be true. The others just had believed him to be firmly on their side, rejecting his family. She had believed he loved her. Now Minerva knew the truth. He had undoubtedly been just using her, presumably due to her position at Hogwarts, beside Dumbledore. The shame pierced her soul, at having been so easily swept off her feet. He had been passionated and romantic. She’d been caught up, swept away by his grand declarations. She no longer wanted to think of him. She no longer wanted to consider anything about him.

The one bright spot was that no one else had known. Her shameful secret was hers alone. Sirius could talk, it was true, but who would believe him now that he was revealed as a liar. A traitor and a murder. The murderer and traitor with whom she had shared a bed, shared her secret girlish dreams, her private moments. Besides, in Azkaban there would be no one for him to tell except the Dementors, who wouldn’t care.

A part of her hated to think of that beautiful boy, that handsome face, that lithe body wasting away in a prison cell. But more of her was grateful that she would never have to see him again. She made a mental note to block out all details of his trial, whenever that might be. She didn’t want to hear him justify himself. She didn’t want to hear him crow about how long and how well he’d fooled them all. Poor James, poor Lily, poor Peter. All victims who’d loved him, who’d trusted him with their lives. They’d paid with their lives. At least all she’d lost was her pride. In that way she was the lucky one. 

She felt dirty, her eyes casting round the rooms he’d all to often occupied with her. She could almost feel his ghost, lounging shirtless in her armchair. If she were to shift to her cat form, she knew she would still be able to smell his scent in her bed, the faint aroma of dog lingering. She would have to clean, scrub, sanitise everything before roaming her own rooms in cat form. It hurt, that additional detail. To be reminded of bitter memories, pleasure turning to pain, no longer able to find comfort in curling up as a cat. She’d always done so when she was upset, licking her fur and burying herself in her bedding, but now she knew that she would be overwhelmed by memories she was hiding from. He was affecting her even far away, preventing her from grieving as she normally would.

But no amount of licking would clean away the sensation of his hands, both innocently stroking her soft fur and stroking her human flesh considerably less innocently. They’d trailed all over her, in every form, and she’d believed in their sincerity. She’d believed in the truth from his lips too, the passionate declarations of love and the passionate kisses. Now she knew they were all lies.

Viciously, unwilling to cry despite the tears welling behind her eyes, she transfigured one of his discarded muggle T-shirts that he’d always seemed to love so much into a semblance of a bin bag. It seemed fitting. A few more flicks of her wand and the most visible items of his were buried deep within it. She knew there would be more, in drawers and the wardrobe, lurking where she was least expecting, but it was a start. Scourgify was not quite enough to really remove all his traces, especially seeing as they were so psychological, but it made her feel a bit better to scour everything in sight. The bedsheets she too removed. She would buy new ones. Replace all of them, become brand new. She felt old and used, but she would sleep on new sheets unsullied by lying young men. And he would rot in Azkaban where he belonged. Somehow that thought didn’t heal her broken heart as much as she hoped it would.


	2. Severus

She’d sworn off younger men but somehow Severus had wormed his way into her heart and thus her bed. She’d felt certain that he was different. He didn’t feel that much younger, probably because age always minimised age gaps. They had both been teachers, with shared irritations. Students, whoever was failing to teach Defence Against the Dark Arts that year, Dumbledore. It was worse. Their shared places expanded all the way through the castle. His rooms and hers. The secret kisses in the staff room when they were alone. The lingering glances over students’ heads as they handed out detentions.

Fooled again. He’d fled away, but the reminders were everywhere. No one seemed to be aware, the only one who had an inkling was Dumbledore. Dumbledore, who they’d often shared complaints about, murdered in cold blood. By Severus. It had taken her so long to trust again, and romantic relations were always limited when you lived in a castle in the arse end of nowhere. She had thought it was too good to be true. He had been too good to be true.

She considered asking the house elves to burn everything within his quarters, a feeble, petty revenge. She was tempted to do so herself, but she couldn’t bear to go there. To replay in her mind all the many scenes of his deceit. To witness her humiliation. She wondered how long he’d been playing with them all. She took comfort in the knowledge that at least Dumbledore had been entirely taken in by him as well, but she doubted Dumbledore had believed it to be love. She doubted Dumbledore had spent his nights with him, sharing dreams and insecurities.

She found herself questioning everything. Had she just been a convenient fuck, better than nothing and cheaper than a whore? Had he cared for her, as she had so desperately believed? Or was she really that old and lonely, so pathetic to be taken in by a few kind words and the odd sultry glance? Had he been using her for information? To make himself look better in Dumbledore’s eyes, winning his trust by bedding his second? Dumbledore had always been a fool for love. And Severus was an excellent Occlumens. And Legimancy too, she thought, had he been rummaging round her mind as his fingers were in her hair, as his lips were on hers? Had he been playing with her feelings as he played with her body?

Her room too held too much that reminded her of him. Notes about all sorts of mundane things, the running of the school and competitive bets on the outcome of Quidditch matches. They hadn’t played with money for years now, an increasingly complicated system tying House points and Quidditch points to their love making, only now Minerva could not longer call it love making. Books that he had been reading, from nights spent in her bed rather than his own, left casually on the bedside table as if he had considered her rooms home. She had found it endearing, now it clawed at her soul. Had it been a show of power, of possession, of him manoeuvring in on her space and claiming it as his own just as he’d done to her body and soul?

She knew without looking that his robes hung in her wardrobe. Some of her belongings were in his rooms too, but she resigned herself to never again reclaiming them. They were gone. She couldn’t bear the agony of retrieving them, or the humiliation of being seen doing so. To ask the house elves was beyond the level of shame she could bear. It was a secret she would take to her grave. Severus had never spoken of it, so she had feeble hopes he would keep it secret too. He was probably ashamed at how low he had stooped in service to his bloody Dark Lord, she thought bitterly. It gave her no comfort.

She’d burn all the bedsheets. New ones for a new woman. One who didn’t bother with love. One who didn’t dream. One who lived her life alone and slept alone, a worn out old spinster as she was clearly destined to be. To have hopes and dreams had clearly been a mistake. She had a duty to the school, she had a duty to the war. She would fulfil it.


End file.
